April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Atos, a French rival of computer-services giant International Business Machines Corp., has
received interest from potential partners for the electronic-payments unit it’s planning to split off by midyear.

A share of the payments unit could be sold to one or more
partners, Senior Executive Vice President Gilles Grapinet said
today in a phone interview. The Bezons, France-based company
said in February it’s seeking to sell a minority stake in the
unit, with an initial public offering as one option, to finance
acquisitions to expand the business.

“Our announcement about the carve-out has generated a
great deal of strategic interest from players in the payments
world,” Grapinet said. “We’re busy finalizing the carve-out,
that’s our priority. Our finance and mergers and acquisitions
teams are evaluating scenarios.”

Atos’s goal is to make the electronic-payments unit, which
had 1.1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in sales last year, into
Europe’s largest, Grapinet said. The company intends to keep
majority of the unit once it has been split off, he said.

Grapinet declined to say if Atos has started discussions
with any of the potential partners. The company has been
approached by bankers about options, he said.

Atos today reported first-quarter sales fell 1.2 percent to
2.12 billion euros. The company confirmed its yearly forecast
for “slight revenue growth” and an operating margin around 7.5
percent of sales, up from 6.6 percent in 2012.

“We expect a ramp-up throughout the year from what we see
as a low point in the first quarter,” Grapinet said. “That’s
both for macroeconomic reasons and because some large contracts
we signed last year are bearing fruit.”